Terra Incognita
by clockwork starlight
Summary: Five strange places someone else found items of their underwear. Arthur/Ariadne done for a prompt on inception kink. Naturally, sexytiems are involved.


So... working on a chaptered fic for Arthur/Ariadne that will hopefully actually have an ending maybe someday possibly soon. This one was done for a prompt over on the LJ kink community, because I'm bent like that. It was three at night. It was too hot to sleep... so I did this.

Ariadne's being proactive because "Is that what happened to you?" and "They're still together?" tell me she makes snappy come backs and doesn't always get along with DISCRETION. Ellen Page in Whip It makes me really want her to be sassy and sexual.

Inception is Christopher Nolan's, and eventually I will get over what you tried to do to Batman (seriously, I loved everything about those movies EXCEPT the plot). You tried to make Bruce Wayne a mostly normal man among normal men. He didn't come across as WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE, he came across as short-sighted(the only way to save people's lives was by drawing attention to himself? SLOPPY) and easily distracted (by THE GIRL WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN). Also, I called the whole blackmail thing two minutes after the first movie. I forgive you for fucking with my heroes because Inception still makes me squee a little when I think about it. I'm still asleep, aren't I?

Five strange places someone else found items of their underwear.

* * *

(1) Ariadne doesn't have a great track record with hotels in dreams. They tend to end up populated with homicidal projections. So it's understandable she has some reservations (pun not intended, stop laughing Eames before I shove foamcore down your throat) about recreating the honeymoon suite where the mark spends his every anniversary. She's distracted from her concerns when she hears Arthur asking for the suite, laughing with whoever's on the other end, mentioning his good friend Dr. Stefanovich and the excellent services he receives, how much they are looking forward to this trip.  
"Booked the room." Arthur tucks his phone away with some satisfaction.  
The forger is cackling at the thought of Arthur playing husband, reminding him to pack his good knickers and extra shirts and to bring them back something nice, Golden Gate shot glasses are a start. He is interrupted by a ball of paper to the back of his head.  
Ariadne is studiously bent over her portfolio when both men turn to look.  
Eames returns her scribble with a dramatic flourish.  
"It's about time to go to the gym, don't you think, Mrs. Stefanovich?" she asks innocently.  
"Interesting work attire," Eames returns. Ariadne glances down at her black pencil skirt, white blouse, actual pumps and represses the urge to see if Arthur has noticed the difference. For the fiftieth time in two hours.  
"I _am _supposed to be working a desk job," she retorts.  
"Anything you say, love." Eames takes his coat and his leave with a cheery wave.

Arthur approaches with something like purpose in his steps.  
"Been to San Francisco before?" he asks casually.  
She lights up like Paris at night. "No, but I'm so hoping this is an offer to take me."  
He can practically see the anticipation flicking in her eyes like a slide carousel; the bridge, Chinatown, the traces of Lawrence Halprin, the empty buildings others have converted into art. He can't help himself from leaning down and kissing her. He pulls away after two seconds, but her hands are clutching his necktie like a lifeline.  
She's been waiting for this for months. She thought of her comeback in the taxi as it turned onto the Rue de Temple and has been saving it for the next time she gets him alone in the real world.  
"A man like you shouldn't waste his shots," she says with her best Jessica Rabbit. She waits for him to laugh, to tell her to grow up, to explain that kisses aren't wedding rings or free slices of pie or sticking gum in your hair, that a quick press of lips doesn't _mean_ anything in the real world.  
He doesn't.

Instead his hands fit themselves to the curve of her hips and he's tasting the terribly sweet coffee she had with breakfast. She gets him out of his shirt first, and he retaliates by unbuttoning hers with just his teeth, and she only remembers she's wearing the peach bra when she sees it on the ground where she's about to drop his slacks. The ugly bra that she had to wear today because it's a white blouse and this is reality, where people can see your underwear through white clothes. Arthur makes a soft noise, and she realizes it's incredibly rude of her to stop when he's only wearing his boxers.  
"Sorry. I just… wasn't sure… um." It is incredibly difficult to think of anything, much less excuses, when she's almost straddling Arthur on used patio furniture.  
"Consider it practice for San Francisco, Mrs. Greene," he offers gallantly despite his position.  
"I-I… um what? Mrs. Greene?" she sputters. "Please tell me that's not your name," she finishes lamely. Clearly it's not the most important issue here, and she might well be a bad person for thinking less of him, but the love of her (admittedly short and strange) life can _not_ have a name destined for teaching high school.  
"Actually I got the inspiration from you." He undoes the zipper on her skirt. She moves to stand automatically. He doesn't let her, pulling it over her head instead and wrapping an arm around her. She looks down and sees her boyshorts are indeed emerald green.  
"How did you—?"  
"I was looking."  
"But I didn't even—"  
"Quick, give me a kiss."  
She gives him a hundred.

Eames strides up to Arthur the next day, holding a filmy brown something with the barest tips of his fingers. The point man recognizes it as Ariadne's nylons but continues examining the schedule in front of him.  
"I decided that you wearing women's clothes was actually the_ least_ unsettling explanation I had for this being under the PASIV."

(2) Ariadne tries not to shift uncomfortably in her new Chanel dress. She wonders if couture comes with tags or if Arthur had them removed (so she wouldn't freaking faint when she put it on). She thinks it even smells like _parfum_, and shouldn't she be feeling like a supermodel or something? She sits down as soon as she spots a free chair and puts her suitcase in front of her so no one can see her prying her poor abused heels out of the fashionably tortuous stilettos. She hopes to god the curtains aren't the color of champagne, and the elevator is at the other end of the hall, and no one has ransacked the room looking for answers that are wrong because they're true.  
She catches a glimpse of herself in one of the many mirrors in the lobby, Arthur's five feet behind her, finished checking in and ready to collect her. Suddenly it's not that bad, because not wanting to infect the clothes with her vintage/gypsy taste is as good an excuse as any for getting very naked the second that door clicks shut.

How can she even think of someone else's wife when she has Arthur, warm and lean and heavy and impossible to imagine, pressing himself into the wall, telling her to memorize the room _quickly_. His urgency drives her to whip out her notebook and make a dozen furious sketches of the bed and the box of truffles on the nightstand and the bathroom and the inside of the closet with its little safety deposit box. She's bent over, inspecting the layout of the fridge and its minibar when she feels Arthur's hands tracing the lace of her panties.  
"Ariadne, since when have you owned a thong?"  
"Didn't it come up in my file?" she asks teasingly, pushing into his touch. "Actually I got it after I saw this dress, because you can't wear a Chanel with underwear that will make _lines_…" She looks up at him and hurriedly finishes her note-taking.  
The second the book is shut, he has her naked and on the floor.  
The look she gives him clearly says _You couldn't wait two seconds to get to the bed?_  
"The last architect I worked with fucked up the carpet. Call me thorough."  
She calls him many things that night.

Housekeeping finds a black thong behind the headboard of the bed. It doesn't top the one found in the fridge last week.

(3) They end up staying the night in New York because of the weather. She shouldn't be surprised the hotel room Arthur gets for them has a balcony. Her shirt and scarf are plastered to her skin (outlining the horrible strapless bra she had to wear with the Chanel dress and is wearing now because she didn't feel comfortable letting someone else see the stain on her spare), but that doesn't stop her from going on to the balcony to catch as much of the storm as she can. She wonders briefly if this childish display is going to send her back to singlehood and celibacy and _sorry Ariadne, we're just too different_. She shivers.  
A towel engulfs her in white warmth, and she probably shouldn't be as turned on as she is that rainwater is pooling under her breasts and she can see Arthur's slacks are dripping on the tile while he dries her off like a pet.  
Her shirt comes off and hits the floor with a wet _smack_. She meets his kiss halfway. Her hands drag over his back, fingers pulling at the still damp skin, tongue tugging a tempest of lust out of him. He has to help her out of the stiff denim, and she can't tell if the cotton of her panties is soaked with rain or desire. She doesn't much care when Arthur shoves it aside and maps what he finds with his lips.  
They make love against the railing, the deep thrum of the storm indistinguishable from the resonance between them.

A taxi driver, looking for fares in this weather, can only blame his continuing poor luck when Ariadne's bra ends up tangled in his windshield wipers.

(4) He escorts her home, and she dares to think they are in a real relationship, one comprised of conversation and common interests and hot sex and comfort and similarly sharp senses of humor and gentle sex and trust and a dislike of olives and all the other things she has yet to discover but they share anyway. She asks him, in as many words, and his only response is to ask how she knew he didn't like olives.  
She stops and stares up at him, demanding an answer because she is an architect and this is real life, and you don't build on nonexistent foundations.  
He pulls her into an alleyway and tells her everything he knows about her. He tells her the places that make her especially wet, what her different little noises mean, how he loves the way her hair falls about them like his own personal labyrinth. He tells her about her school, her family, her friends and when he's finished listing all there is she still doesn't understand _why_.  
"Because it's not enough," he says simply.  
When she understands she has his shirt off, and the undershirt too, and she's kissing, biting, licking, sucking at his chest and he doesn't know how to stop her, but he doesn't want to just yet.

He leans against the wall as she rebuckles his belt. Little bruises are blooming on the planes of his torso. There's no discernible pattern to them and he knows he's pretty good at details like that.  
"Be my totem," she whispers into his neck.

A cat finds the discarded wifebeater amidst the rest of the refuse in the alley. She stretches, making catfists in the once snow white and perfect neck and goes to sleep.

(5) Angeline comes back from her ski trip to find her roommate practically dancing as she cleans. They learn they both had a wonderful break, and they both heavily edit how wonderful.  
They are at the launderette, just finished drying the remains of the holiday, Angeline folding, Ariadne sorting.  
Angeline finds expensive grey silk boxers which she knows are not hers. Ariadne sees them in her hand, and a smile spreads across her face before she realizes she's in a whole lot of trouble.

* * *

Terra Incognita - basically uncharted territory. There's some kind of metaphor involving the length of the bits and their relationship that sounded really awesome last night, but I don't remember it.


End file.
